2017 Monaco Grand Prix – The Good, Bad and Ugly

It was a Ferrari 1-2 in the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix, as the recent dominance of Mercedes in the Principality of Monaco was ended by Sebastian Vettel.

With his nearest Championship rival Lewis Hamilton starting the race from 13th on the grid after qualifying troubles, Sebastian Vettel took full advantage with maximum points on the streets of Monaco. He had to get past his team mate Kimi Raikkonen, who took pole on Saturday, but did so with a favourable pit stop strategy and looked comfortable once in front and cruised to a reasonably easy win.

Kimi Raikkonen made it three consecutive years of very unhappy drivers on the podium after losing the lead top his German team mate, but a second place finish was still a reasonable result for a driver who had slightly under achieved so far in 2017. Australian Daniel Ricciardo made the podium, which made up for a disappointing Saturday.

A reasonably straight forward Monaco Grand Prix was enlivened towards the end when the Safety Car came out after the accident between Pascal Wehrlein and Jenson Button saw the Sauber parked on its side on the barrier. The late burst of laps with the field close together saw the drivers go a little berserk as the finals laps saw a number of incidents.

It didn’t make any difference up the front though as Sebastian Vettel held on to win from his Ferrari team mate to notch his second win at Monaco, and the first win in the principality for Ferrari in 16 years, since his compatriot Michael Schumacher won the last of his Monaco GPs.

Here are the Good, Bad and Ugly for the big race in Monaco.

GOOD

SEBASTIAN VETTEL

Fast all weekend, he was pipped to pole by his team mate and unhappy about it, but the struggles of Lewis Hamilton in qualifying and 14th grid position gave him plenty of breathing space going into the race.

The question was whether Ferrari would help the German get in front of Kimi for Championship purposes during the race, and who could argue with Ferrari given Hamilton’s woes, but he did it himself during the pitstops and cleared off until the safety car came out.

Took care of business after the Safety car disappeared, and it is hardtop argue he wasn’t the best driver all weekend and didn’t deserve the full 25 points on offer.

KIMI RAIKKONEN

His first pole since 2008, and an important message to F1 that he isn’t finished yet. On this drivers track, the Finn got to show all that he still has the speed and quality to challenge up the front of Formula 1.

Overtaken by his team mate during the pit stops, his second place finish was still a great result for him and his team. Hopefully it will give him the confidence to take it to Vettel and Mercedes for the rest of the year. Could rightly feel aggrieved at the preferential strategy treatment of Vettel by the team, but if he takes more Pole Positions will give his team more to think about on race days.

Still, great to have Kimi right up the front again.

DANIEL RICCIARDO

Was very unhappy at his team for the second year in a row after feeling aggrieved at the Red Bull’s tactics during qualifying, he claimed he should have been higher than his grid position. His 3rd place finish proved that point was correct, and the podium put a smile back on his face.

The Australian was chasing Kimi Raikkonen hard before the Safety Car came out, and could maybe have finished 2nd. A second consecutive podium, and finishing ahead of both Mercedes and his team mate is a result that is almost as good as it gets at the moment.

JENSON BUTTON

The 2009 WC can add Super Sub to his CV, as the Briton impressed in his one off drive whilst Fernando Alonso is off at the Indy 500. He would have had a Top 10 start for making it into Q3 before the 15 place grid penalty kicked in. Given that McLaren have had only one Top 10 gird spot previously, it was an excellent effort from Button.

There was not much he could do from the pit lane in the race that drew him level with Michael Schumacher for race starts, although he no doubt would have preferred his race not to have ended in an accident which tipped Pascal Wehrlein’s Sauber on its side.

LEWIS HAMILTON RACE

Having been predicted he would struggle to score any points, his 7th place finish should be seen as great damage limitation, despite his nearest championship rival’s win. It could have been worse, and with the F1 circus moving to one of his better tracks in Canada there’s better weekends ahead.

A shame he didn’t make the podium as the post race interviews with Nico Rosberg would have been very interesting.

CARLOS SAINZ

Winner of best of the rest for Monaco, and doing his booming reputation no harm with his sixth place finish. A top race seat awaits if it becomes available.

BAD

LEWIS HAMILTON QUALIFYING

It has been a long time since Lewis Hamilton struggled so badly with a car. Most certainly back to his McLaren days. The Mercedes team struggled to get a set up to work, and the danger signs for qualifying were evident in P3. 14th on the grid was the result, as bad luck would have it, he was first car on the scene when Stoffel Vandoorne stuffed it into the barriers. He admitted he was looking at around 10th anyway, and was well beaten by his team mate Valtteri Bottas. His race appeared ruined with no points on the horizon, but it was Monaco.

LANCE STROLL

Crashed on Friday which he made links to playing the video game version of Monaco, knocked out of qualifying in Q1 on Saturday, and towards the back all Sunday during the race. Overheating brakes eventually finished his race. The Canadian youngster has his detractors, most saying his cash not his talent got him to F1, and a weekend like this won’t help to fend off those critics.

MARCUS ERICSSON

It is never a good look to crash at Monaco, but to do it at the first corner under the Safety Car makes it even worse. Not a great few minutes for the Sauber team as the Safety Car was brought out to recover his team mate’s car.

UGLY

GRID PENALTIES

Whilst the governing body FIA should do something to encourage reliability to slow the spending arms race, the penalties received by McLaren feel too strict, and how a driver still motivates themselves knowing a 15 grid penalty (or worse as we have seen previously) hanging over them is unbelievable.

PASCAL WEHRLEIN’S ACCIDENT

It is a very rare sight to see a Formula 1 car against a barrier, but you are unable to identify it straight away because all you can see is the bottom of the car.

Eventually it was worked out that it was Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein, but there were a few moments of dread before it was confirmed he was OK. Thankfully he was able to get out of the car himself, and hopefully there is no further damage to the injury which saw him miss the first two races of the year.

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